Right... this chapter was by far the hardest to write, and I think I must have changed it at least twenty times yesterday and this morning. Today I've been glad to write something a bit gentler! But this is an essential part of the story so I hope it works...

There are some answers here, not all, and there's some upsetting stuff too - so be warned. I hope it helps a little in understanding our couple, especially Elsie.

Also, in my mind the Joe featured here is not the one from the show. He'd be a much sexier, younger, rougher type of guy, bit of a Russell Crowe vibe going on maybe!

Chapter 10

Another week goes by and this time no communication. She's trying to accept it's over and she has nobody to blame for that but herself. She doesn't want to even think about the fact that what she might be feeing is heartbreak.

Her bad mood is permeating throughout the department, usually she's the fun one everyone likes – staff and students – hers is the only classroom packed with students at lunch, chatting to her, chatting to each other, working. This week it's been empty. It isn't like her to be so melancholy, to have such a bleak view on the world.

She knows she's been snappy and she wishes she could stop but somehow being rational doesn't take away her short fuse.

Friday lunch she's in her room attempting to get through a set of Year 13 essays, otherwise it will be a Sunday afternoon job, and Phyllis taps on her door and comes to sit by her, pushing a mug of tea in front of her.

"Elsie, what's wrong?"

"Excuse me?"

"We've worked together a long time and something's wrong, you've been late this week…"

"I hardly think that's a crime after twelve years of being here at 7 a.m."

"That's not what I meant. You're snappy, you argued with Spratt the other day."

"That's because Mr Spratt is a total tw…"

"Elsie. This isn't like you."

She bites her lip. Puts her pen down and sits back in her chair, folding her arms. "Are you giving me some kind of warning?"

Phyllis shakes her head, "Of course not. I'm here because we all love you and we're worried. You haven't been like this for years, not since before the divorce."

Ashamed, she looks at the table. A colleague having to talk to her in this way. How embarrassing.

"I'm sorry." She says. She seems to be doing a lot of apologising of late. "I'm having a few issues at home."

"With Anna?"

"No. No Anna's fine, getting ready for her final exams." She squared her shoulders, hoping to put Phyllis off digging anymore. "It's a personal matter."

"If you need anything you just ask – I don't care what it is. I want you here; you're the best damn teacher I have. Right!" She squeezes her arm supportively.

Elsie attempts a smile, "Right. Thanks."

She buys a pizza and a bottle of Pinot Grigio on her way home, not even stopping to chill it she drinks the first glass down straight. She seems to be drinking more lately and she's too afraid to question why that fact might be and it won't matter anyway because once she's drunk enough there won't be anymore questions.

Anna won't be there this weekend, Beryl is busy with her latest foster child and she can't think of anyone else she wants to see so it will be a weekend alone. An entire weekend alone, to sit and dwell and feel sorry for herself.

She runs the cold water in the kitchen and splashes it on her face. Of late she can't shift her dark mood, it can't all be down to Charles. But she doesn't know why it's surfacing now. She googled 'depression' two days ago and wondered if this was some late reaction to the divorce, or maybe to the idea of Anna being independent. Maybe her age. Changes to her body.

She cooks the pizza and pours more wine and settles on the sofa.

Her doorbell rings just after seven and she's annoyed because Emmerdale had just started and she's wearing nothing but an old shirt and bed socks and curled up on the sofa beneath a blanket.

She wraps it around her and goes to the door pressing the intercom.

"It's me sweetheart."

Joe.

"Bloody hell." She mutters, standing there with her hand over the intercom wondering what to do.

"Oh, it's fine, the other tenant is here." He says and she's startled because now he's in the building and coming up the stairs and she's not prepared for it. For seeing him again.

She takes off the chain and opens the door.

He's carrying a bottle of Johnnie Walker, "Fancy a drink, Elly?" He asks.

"What are you doing here?" She leans against the door.

"Had a lousy week and Sarah is away – Spain with friends – so I thought I'd have a drink with my oldest friend." He shakes the bottle in front of her face.

She huffs, debating with herself, "Come on babe," he says leaning on the door frame and she stands aside and lets him in.

She grabs glasses from the kitchen and joins him on the sofa, "Tell me you're not watching this shit Elly." He says indicating the soap opera on the television.

"I needed to relax."

"Bad week for you too?"

"Just busy." She tucks her legs under her and accepts the glass. "You know how this time of year is."

"I remember." He clinks his glass against hers, "here's to chilling then."

They find a film to watch, Joe turns the lights out, refills their glasses and they finish the rest of her pizza sitting side-by-side on the sofa.

An hour later she's dizzy and Joe is making her laugh as he drunkenly imitates the guy on the screen. And she'd forgotten how he could make her laugh. Then his hand is on her knee, and he's leaning forward, "You remember when we were kids like them, our first time in your Dad's barn. Scared to death I was gonna get my naked arse pounded."

"If he caught you he would have."

"Worth it though…"

Then he's kissing her and she's rigid, doesn't know what to do. It feels like it used to, like being married again and having the security of him being there.

She finds herself on her back on the sofa with Joe between her legs and she has her eyes closed as she tries to push the sour feeling away from her stomach. This wasn't how it was meant to feel.

She hears him unfasten the belt on his jeans, he pushes her knees apart, reaches to her knickers and pushes them aside and then he's on top of her again and she can feel his tongue on her neck and his penis against her and his belt is digging into her thigh. And it hurts."No," she suddenly gasps, her throat raw. "No, Joe, I don't want to." She scrambles up, instantly sober. Snatching back some semblance of sanity. She's panting, flustered. "I don't want to." She says again, on the verge of hysteria.

He sits back on the sofa confused, "But you did want to, I could feel you did. Like it used to be."

"I can't. We can't. You're married to somebody else, for goodness sake, and this can't happen, you have to stop coming to see me."

"I thought we were friends."

"Friends don't fuck on the sofa."

"Some friends do," he says, but he's fastening up his jeans and searching for his jacket and she can't believe she's 51 and screwing up in such a stupid way.

She's frozen by the wall, keeping the sofa between them, watching him, afraid of what this means, of who she is. Afraid she'll never move forward.

He calls a taxi.

"Elly…" He says making a move to come around to her.

"Don't, please just go. I don't want to see you anymore. Do you understand that? Don't come here again." She tries to keep her voice as steady as possible, to make her words clear.

To his credit he does as she asks and leaves and she races to the door after he's closed it, locking it, bolting it, collapsing against it and finally letting her tears fall. She can't stop crying. Shaking violently. Disgusted with herself. Hatred burns in her chest and she feels sick.

She scrubs her face, washes her body.

In the lounge she can smell him and she's revolted and scared at how close she came to having sex with him. What if he hadn't stopped? What if he hadn't taken no for an answer? She certainly wasn't innocent, she'd led him on, it could be argued that she had. She warned girls against being so bloody stupid.

Charles can't understand what she's saying when he answers the phone. Just that she's crying hysterically and its two in the morning and she's just yanked him from sleep.

"Elsie, you have to calm down," he says, scrambling out of bed, searching for trousers, trying to put the dammed phone on to speaker. He presses at buttons then her sobs fill his bedroom. "Elsie, honey, are you hurt? You aren't hurt, please, stay calm…" He finds a shirt, fastens it haphazardly and he's stumbling down the stairs, grabbing his keys and in the car before he can think.

He drives too fast. Curses red lights. He worries she's been attacked, he's never heard someone in such a state.

When he bangs on her door it seems to take an age for it to open and then she's in front of him, red faced and puffy eyes.

"I'm sorry," she sobs and he couldn't be more confused. "I'm so sorry for what I've done to you." He moves inside, closing the door behind him, trying his best to calm her, to touch her but she keeps backing away. "I'm such a horrible person and I'm so… I miss you… I don't know what to do, what I've done…"

Her words spill out, nonsensical, mumbled fragments of sentences interspersed with sobbing and hiccupping.

"Elsie," he says as gently as he can, reaching for her arms, "Elsie darling tell me what's happened."

"I can't, I can't. I'm so scared Charles. Why am I so scared of this?" She shakes her arms in front of her, her chest is red and blotchy and he's genuinely afraid she's hurt herself. "I don't want to be scared of this. I want it. I want you."

"Honey, don't be scared," he catches her elbows, stops her frantic movements, pulls her to him to hold her still, pressing her against him. "Elspeth, I'm here now. You don't have to be scared."

"Please don't leave me."

She sags against him after a while, her body weak and limp, and he easily lifts her up, carrying her through to the lounge and laying her down on the sofa. He sits beside her and she presses her face against him, crying against his chest.

He strokes her hair, mutters words of comfort and waits for her to calm, because he's not sure what else he can do but just be there.

Charles wakes with a rigid neck and Elsie's head in his lap. His arm is over her and he glances down to see she is gripping it with both hands.

He flexes his fingers, moves his other arm to touch her hair. "Elsie?"

She's asleep. He notices the half empty bottle of wine on the table, a bottle of whisky and two glasses. The room is dark and he's tired but he can't sleep like that. He lifts her head, slides out from the sofa and puts a cushion beneath her cheek. He's just stretching when he feels her catch his wrist, "Don't leave me." She begs and he has little choice but to squash behind her on the sofa, pulling a blanket over them.

The next time he wakes there's milky light in the room and his feet are freezing, dangling over the edge of the couch.

His arm is over Elsie and she seems to still be sleeping and for long moments he forgets about his cold toes as he watches her.

He's surprised when her body jolts quite violently and she mumbles something, as if in pain, then her body jerks again and she catches her breath and her eyes are wide as she stares at the back of the couch, disorientated.

"Are you alright?" He asks gently, not daring to move.

If she's startled by his presence she doesn't show it, just blinks a couple of times, "Just a dream I have."

He squeezes her hip, "Tell me."

She's never told anyone. Only Joe, when they first married. Yet in this oddly surreal moment she feels like she's been meaning to tell him since they met.

The room is heavy with silence, yet he doesn't push; he lays still behind her, his arm heavy over her waist, listening to her shallow breathing.

"My father used to beat my mother," she says suddenly into the dark, a cold, simple statement. "For as long as I can remember, we all knew but it was never spoken of." She paused, breathing deeply as if searching for the right words. "And this idyllic childhood I'm meant to have had with a large family on a working farm was riddled with fear, I remember at four years old knowing what fear was, always there, lurking on the edges of all you did."

She stops again, closing her eyes as if playing it out, concentrating on breathing – in and out – she can't seem to find the words but she knows she has to now, she's come this far and more than that, she wants him to know, it's important that he knows.

"This dream I have, I've had it for years. When I was 16 I was sent home ill from school, I'd been sick and off I went, no buses or calling home, you didn't back then, I just walked. The house was empty when I got in and I remember this cold feeling. I must have… I don't know why, I went out and toward the west barn and there was my father, beating my mother." She swallowed, her voice hollow as she recounted the event. "Slamming her head into one of those…one of those support beam things...I...I can't think of the name."

He squeezes her stomach as if reassuring her it doesn't matter, he daren't breathe for fear of breaking this fragile moment.

"And I did nothing. I watched, then I calmly walked back to the house and went to bed. I even poured myself a glass of milk then I went to bed." Her voice shuddered, "And that's what I dream of, because I did nothing." She spat the words out, "I was 16 years old and I let that happen to her. I didn't shout out or call for help or hit him with the bloody spade…."

"There was nothing you could do. You were a child."

"But I wasn't, I could have…" She stops when her voice breaks and takes her time before continuing, and he lets her, she needs this and perhaps in some way he needs to hear it too.

"I never told my mother, they didn't know I'd seen," she breathes deeply, her hand sliding over his on top of her stomach. She's crying now, he can hear it, and his heart aches for her. That scared girl confused about what she'd seen and what she could do. "I never told anybody." She says again, her voice wracked with sobs.

"Shh," he kisses her head, tries to hold her. "It's alright now."

She tries to turn onto her back, it's tight and she's squashed against the back of the couch but he does his best to accommodate her movement and soon she's staring up at him with watery eyes.

"I met Joe and left as soon as I could. You asked me, when we were away, if I'd ever wanted to go back and I haven't, never, I needed to escape so I married him. I was only just nineteen and we moved to Yorkshire and…" She shrugged. "When you're young you think love's enough, you never consider what might happen, how you might change. I'm not that terrified little farm girl anymore and if I saw that now I think I'd kill him. But then… I didn't know who I was or what life was, you know. My father had a way of making us all believe we were useless; I didn't do well in school, though I probably could have. We didn't have aspirations. He was subtle and sly in how he did it, you couldn't pinpoint a moment or a word, it was just always there and I grew up knowing little of the world beyond that farm."

He nodded, his thumb gently rubbing her hand that lay on top of his. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, his heart thumping.

"Joe was my escape and I was grateful, he was older than me and in my eyes he saved me. And I loved him for that, but as the years went by and Anna was born I realised we were different in so many ways but I couldn't leave. Where would I go? A single parent. Back to Argyll? Never. So I stayed and in time I went back to school, put Anna in nursery, took my exams and studied to be a teacher and…" She swallowed, "And then here I am. This mess." Again she was quiet, staring up at the ceiling - the early morning shafts of light beginning to stream across it.

"If I met myself now, that stupid selfish girl…"

"You were a child," he said again softly. "Not selfish."

"I did nothing. Like I condoned it."

"No…"

She took a long shuddering breath and looked at him, "So, now you know my messy background. I'm not excusing anything, I'm not shirking my behaviour towards you, I'm a selfish person…"

She takes a deep breath, she's never admitted these fears to anyone, "Sometimes I think I must be my father's child. If he's in me I must be the same. The same genes. The same anger and hatred. The same destructive tendencies."

"No, you're not."

Her face crumples and he thinks she'll cry again but she holds her breath instead as if forcing it inside.

"Will you tell me what happened here tonight?"

"I'm sorry," her voice shakes as she recalls – she doesn't want to tell him but there's no half-measures now.

"Why are you sorry?"

"For calling you," she closes her eyes, "for dragging you into this mess. I didn't know who else… I didn't want anybody else. But you don't deserve this, any of it, it's my mess and somehow you've got dragged into it and I'm not sure how or why."

She's quiet again and he lies still, he feels like he might cry for her, over her, so he holds his breath instead and focuses on the gentle circular patterns he's forming on her hand with his fingertips. He has the image that the child inside of her is finally saying what she wanted to years ago.

"I've never been like that." She admits, "It shocked me, being so hysterical, I didn't know how to control it." She feels open to him, exposed, and everything's raw and painful.

She runs a hand through her hair, watching him watching her, he's so calm and solid, he's never flinched or pushed. "I should have had those hysterics years ago, when my father was still alive, I should have told him what I really thought of him."

He kisses the top of her head, "That doesn't make you a bad person, what he did doesn't."

"Why are you so good to me?" She asks.

His voice is vey low, baritone, "I wasn't aware I was."

"You always are. And I don't deserve it, I'm horrible to you, I'm such a horrible person."

"No you're not, you're the most wonderful person I know."

Her eyes fill with tears at his sincerity, "I'm so sorry I hurt you, that I pushed you away. I didn't realise I was so messed up until I was faced with the reality of us. Of what we could be. It's more than I've ever had… I never felt like this, even when I was a newlywed. And I'm scared by that. And I've made such mistakes."

As hard as it is for him to consider or deal with, he needs to get through the next question before they can move on and have any hope of her fixing those mistakes.

He suspects he knows the answer before he even asks but does so as calmly as he can, "Was Joe here tonight?"

She bites her lip, nods, "I'm so very ashamed. If I tell you you'll hate me and I can't bear that. I couldn't bear for you to hate me."

He shakes his head, smiles sadly, "I think we've pretty much established my feelings for you Elsie. I don't think they're just going to disappear, believe me, I've been having that conversation with my heart since we landed in England over three weeks ago."

She pulls the blanket tighter around them, shivering against his chest. "I don't know why I let him in – regrets maybe, guilt, nostalgia." She shrugs. "He kissed me, Christmas time, in the kitchen. Came over with the excuse of dropping off my card and present. Since then I've been in a kind of funk. I don't know what I want. He has this way… …Then he was here last night and we were drinking, and then the next moment he's on top of me…"

Charles tightens his hand against the cushion of the sofa. Does she mean attacking her?

"And I was so confused, those old feelings I had for him, that I still have in some ways. He was my protector, when we first married, that's what he called it. And when I started working and… and I was good at it. I made my own money. I started having my independence and we drifted apart. And I'm not blaming him because I played as much of a role, he started sleeping with other women but that's because I was no longer there, I didn't feel the same."

Charles isn't convinced about that. Surely if you had Elsie Hughes as your wife you'd do whatever it takes to keep it that way. He sounds a selfish bastard, jealous of his wife's success and blossoming personality - a personality not allowed to grow naturally in childhood. But he bites his tongue and lets her go on.

"I was so close to it," she feels revulsion in her chest as she remembers his fingers between her legs. "And then I thought of you." She's crying again, silent tears spilling down her cheeks. "And I hate myself for losing you."

He breathes deeply, closes his eyes a moment to take it in. He's tired and confused and hurt but when he searches inside he can't hate her. Can't stop loving her.

"You've not lost me."

His words offer a glimmer of hope and she feels her heart tighten.

"But if we're going to do this, then you have to be all in Elspeth. No more games. No more of him."

She shakes her head, "I won't see him again."

"I wouldn't dream of demanding that, he's Anna's father and you have this shared past…"

"I won't see him again," she says more forcefully.

They lay in silence for a long time, until the sun is up and the room takes on an orange glow.

He wants to know more about her childhood because he thinks talking it through will help. There's so much he wants to say about what she's told him but he suspects it's not the time, she's opened up and that's enough for now and when she's ready they'll talk some more.

"Perhaps we should make that contract." She says sometime later.

"Oh goodness," he frowns and shakes his head recalling their awful fight in Dubai.

"I mean it." She says calmly, "make things clear from the start, for both of us."

"There are things I want, things I need, from you." He says gently.

"Alright."

"I want you to include me in your life, not just be on the side, someone you see separate to your life. I want to meet your friends, be the person you ask to accompany you to things. And I want that in return – if I have to attend boring Bill's boring barbecues in the summer then you have to suffer too."

She allows herself a small smile, "Okay."

"And I play cricket, on Sunday's, I told you that and asked you to come watch and you never have and I'd like you to."

She nods, ashamed of her behaviour, he's tried so hard and she's done nothing but push him aside. "I will. Next time you play, I'll be there." They'll be no more boxing him into a neat compartment of part time lover and companion, no more shutting him out.

"And you need to talk to me, I need to know what's going on with you. Christ Els, I've never been in love before," he admits. "But bloody hell it's a difficult business."

She allows herself to laugh, "Thank God for you." She's twisting over to cup his face. "And I really mean that, I thank God for you."

"That's another thing," he says as she moves to kiss him. "I think we should refrain from…you know…because when I'm making love to you I forget my own name let alone make rational decisions. It clouds things, I want to be sure, before we go too quickly."

She can understand that. He gave her his all, and she hurt him – he wants to protect himself.

"So, we go back to dating?"

"Yes…" He's nervous, his eyes large and dark and she thinks his lip might be shaking as he speaks.

"Can I touch you though? Because I'd really like to hold you right now."

He smiles sheepishly, moving to a better position so they can embrace and it feels both wonderful and terrifying.

So, there is it - big deep breath on my part now whilst I wait to see what you thought of it...